I saved you
by ShadowDianne
Summary: "I saved you, now you save me" A brief moment between Emma and Regina where the humanity of the former is already slipping away... Based on the last released promo


The thing about the dark one was that no one knew what exactly the one with that title was; were they human? Or something else? Rumplestiskin had been referred to an imp more than a few occasions back on the enchanted forest and certainly he looked like one. The previous Dark One had been so mysterious that no one had known how he looked like and so he had been called a shadow, a ghost, death.

But the dark ones were human, that was the price; infinite power for the soul of the one who decided to accept the magic. The process hurt and after that it was true that those humans were less real than the men and women they had once been but they had been human once, they needed to be one in order to be able to turn into the dark one after all.

Emma had spent too much time thinking about that on the dark cage of grief and pain her mind had become to merely stop on that conclusion and so she had started to wonder how much of herself had changed mentally, how much of herself wasn't herself per se anymore but just another prolongation of the dagger. She at first hadn't understood what meant to be tied to the blade after all, the intricate magic that made both her and it together starting to be more visible as days passed but she still felt that there were many things she still needed to understand, she doubted that even Rumplestiskin had mastered all the secrets the dagger possessed and as far as she knew he had been one of the most long-lived dark ones. There were too many things to consider, too many curses, hate and fear running through her veins every single second at any given moment.

Her feelings were slowly becoming numb, detached from her and as she changed so did the curiosity that had spiked her will to understand the dagger and the ties she had with it. Maybe it was because of that than when she finally heard someone calling for her and a part of her mind recognized the sound she only shrugged, letting the magic inside of her encircle her.

Seeing Regina again was something that hurt though and for a second she blinked, perplexed. She had been waiting for anything to make her feel something besides the rotten magic that left a bittersweet taste on the roof of her mouth every time she thought about it but looking at Regina, seeing the way her eyes widened slightly as she took on the way she was dressed, on how she looked, made a part of her to twist in pain. The most human part of her, the one that still remembered why she had taken that final step, deciding her destiny. She swallowed, looking at her right hand where her dagger shone briefly to a sun that she didn't recognize what world it illuminated anymore. It didn't matter though and the pain only grew when she took on how Regina's face fell when she realized that the part of her that she had been searching for didn't appear to be there.

She wanted to say sorry but, for what? She didn't remember what she was anymore, what kind of person she still could be and so she bit her lips and let the brunette talk, unable to do it herself.

"Emma"

The word was probably what hurt the most. She still called herself Emma inside her mind, her brain refusing to accept the title she had quickly accepted in the middle of a dark road. But she knew that she would start to be called something else as days passed, as her name started to sound more like a curse than anything else on the lips of those who loved her, who had loved the Emma she had once been. She feared and waited the day, the day her name would be another kind of curse and no one would be able to mention her name in fear of what she would be able to do. She had also thought about that, about how Rumplestiskin may have reacted the day his name had started to be a curse instead of the way his loved ones called him.

Hearing Regina saying it was only another reminder that her name, alongside with her humanity, was something very short lived and so she closed her eyes, unable to say something when the brunette took a step closer to her, their eyes meeting when Emma finally reopened hers again, brown against a deep green that started to turn swirling dark.

She pondered on what she could tell to the older woman, what kind of thing she could say to the woman for who she had given everything she had once been.

"Regina"

It hadn't been much but it had been something and when the other woman nodded, softly, gently, she knew that maybe it had been the right word to use.

Maybe that was the last piece of humanity that still lived inside of her, the hope she could see on Regina's eyes when their eyes locked for a second time, the ghost of a gentle smile, of conversations that hadn't been said, of things the person she had been, of the things she had wanted to say, of the secrets she hadn't shared but Regina had still know.

"Take it" She said, her voice chocking a little as she made Regina take the dagger from her hands, her eyes, open, searching on Emma's, the beginning of an argument starting to grow between her lips.

But Emma couldn't wait much longer, it was already probably too late for her after all but Regina had always know better than her and just because of that she knew that she needed to wound the woman in front of her in order to make her keep the dagger away for anyone else.

"I saved you, now you save me" She said, swallowing and trying to smirk, something that looked like tears burning her eyes but refusing to spill. She felt anger, pain, and when Regina looked away from her for a second she knew she had done the right thing.

"I'm sorry" She wanted to say, but she couldn't, she was too far gone for that, for what they could have been.

At least, she thought, her soul was with Regina, the last piece of the woman she had been, of the woman she had loved the brunette enough to sacrifice herself in order to preserve the other woman's happiness. That would be enough, it had to.


End file.
